Northern Ireland

Work begins on Carrick Hill houses close to parading flashpoint

Gerard Brophy of St Patrick's and St Joseph's Housing Association and Frank Dempsey pictured as the foundations are laid for a new housing development at Carrick Hill close to Clifton Street Orange Hall, which is in the background. Picture by Mal McCann.
Gerard Brophy of St Patrick's and St Joseph's Housing Association and Frank Dempsey pictured as the foundations are laid for a new housing development at Carrick Hill close to Clifton Street Orange Hall, which is in the background. Picture by Mal Gerard Brophy of St Patrick's and St Joseph's Housing Association and Frank Dempsey pictured as the foundations are laid for a new housing development at Carrick Hill close to Clifton Street Orange Hall, which is in the background. Picture by Mal McCann.
By Connla Young

WORK has started on new homes in a nationalist area close to a parading flashpoint in Belfast.

Earlier this year planners gave the green light for six apartments on a site yards from Clifton Street Orange Hall to the north of the city centre.

The properties will be the first homes in the Carrick Hill area to be built fronting the nationalist section of Clifton Street, which has been a parades flashpoint since 2012.

Plant equipment and workmen recently moved onto the site.

After planning permission was granted the Orange Order claimed that members based in north Belfast were not consulted.

However, Choice Housing said it consulted with Belfast Orange Hall about the proposed development, met with members of the Orange Order and engaged in written correspondence.

Planning documents show that there were no objections to the proposal.

A housing plan for the Clifton Street site was previously submitted but withdrawn in 2014.

Questions were raised after it emerged that former DUP housing minister Nelson McCausland met housing association representatives at Clifton Street Orange Hall weeks before the plan was withdrawn.

He and party colleagues North Belfast MP Nigel Dodds and councillor Brian Kingston were believed to have attended the meeting with officials from the now defunct Oaklee Homes.

At the time the DUP said party representatives held a “meetings with statutory agencies and groups on issues relating to their constituency” and this was a “normal” part of their work. 

It later emerged that plans to build on the site were scrapped because of a directive by the DUP-run Department for Social Development in documents produced in 2013 that any developments fronting Clifton Street should be non-residential.

Frank Dempsey from Carrick Hill Residents Association last night welcomed the commencement of work.

“This is the first time there has been social housing on the front of Clifton Street,” he said.

“The brickwork is going to blend in and be part of Clifton Street gateway.

“It brings life to this part of Clifton Street.”

Mr Demspey called for other potential housing sites owned by Belfast City Council in north Belfast to also be released for social housing.